And The Pendulums Swing
- Sergio Alexander Norton
- Sep 24
- 3 min read
Updated: Sep 28
I’ve been thinking about pendulums lately. Not the kind you see swinging in a clock, but the way structures work — how groups of people create rhythms and patterns that start to carry their own momentum.
When archaeologists discovered Caral, one of the earliest cities, they noticed something unusual. No walls. No weapons. No signs of warfare. Instead, the city seemed to grow out of rhythm — shared rituals, trade, music, gatherings. A pendulum of connection.
That’s what struck me: a pendulum doesn’t always need force. In the language of transurfing, it’s a structure of energy. People focus on something together, and a rhythm emerges, carrying them forward almost effortlessly.
The Body as a City
Our bodies are like that too.
Every cell a citizen with a job.
Every organ a district with a purpose.
The heartbeat, the breath, the circadian rhythm — pendulums that keep the whole place alive.
When those rhythms are left to run naturally, the body self-organises beautifully.
Just like Caral, it thrives without fortresses, through balancing rhythm rather than constant defence.
When Other Pendulums Take Over
Governments, political parties, corporations, families, even social groups — they all have their own pendulums. And often they’re loud ones.
It’s so easy to get caught in their swing and forget your own. I know this because I did it recently. I overdid it, kept giving, kept pushing, put other people’s needs ahead of mine. I ignored the signals. For me, it starts in my stomach — a dull ache that says: too much pressure, stop! I didn’t stop. And my body made sure I understood. I ended up drained, forced to stop and recover.
The body doesn’t play along when you override it — it always finds a way to say “enough.”
Reclaiming Hidden Rhythms
Maybe reclaiming balance isn’t about fixing anything. Maybe it’s just about noticing. The first whisper of tight shoulders. The shallow inhale that never quite fills the chest. The restless sleep that keeps circling back. And then, with conscious awareness ask yourself:
“Whose pendulum am I swinging in right now?
Here’s the quiet miracle: simply noticing shifts the system. Awareness lights new pathways in the brain, opening room for a different flow.
Something interesting from neuroscience: simply becoming aware of what’s happening changes how the system behaves. Awareness recruits new pathways in the brain, helping regulate the stress response. The moment you notice, you’re already shifting [3][4].
"We grow from within. And as we grow stronger from within, the adversities from outside become less."
Manly P. Hall
The Language of Sensation
But there’s a trick: the body doesn’t speak in stories. It doesn't care about narratives. It doesn’t understand “I’m stressed because of my boss” or “I’m anxious about tomorrow.”
It speaks in sensations: Cold. Shaky. Tight. Sharp. Heavy. Burning. Empty, etc.
When we name those raw signals, the nervous system responds. Research shows that putting sensations into words calms the alarm centres of the brain (amygdala) and creates space for balance to return [8][14]. It’s not about explaining, it’s about naming — and letting the body feel heard.
Massage as a Tuning Fork
This is why body-based therapies matter. Massage, for example, can act like a tuning fork. The touch reminds the body of its own rhythm, the one that got lost in all the noise. Breath slows down. Muscles release. Forgotten signals reawaken.
And in that moment, you’re no longer swinging in someone else’s pendulum.
You’re back in your own.
Stay tuned,
Sergio Alexander Norton
References
[1] Shady, R. (2001). The Caral Civilization: The oldest known civilization in the Americas. Science, 292(5517), 723–726. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1059519
[2] Zeland, V. (2004). Reality Transurfing: Steps I–V. Publisher page https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2848550-reality-transurfing-1?ref=nav_sb_ss_2_11
[3] Farb, N. A., et al. (2010). Minding one’s emotions: Mindfulness training alters the neural expression of sadness. Emotion, 10(1), 25–33. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/a0017151
[4] Creswell, J. D., et al. (2007). Neural correlates of dispositional mindfulness during affect labelling. Psychosomatic Medicine, 69(6), 560–565. https://journals.lww.com/psychosomaticmedicine/Fulltext/2007/07000/Neural_Correlates_of
[5] Critchley, H. D., & Garfinkel, S. N. (2017). Interoception and emotion. Current Opinion in Psychology, 17, 7–14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.04.020
[8] Lieberman, M. D., et al. (2007). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity. Psychological Science, 18(5), 421–428. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01916.x
[9] Khalsa, S. S., et al. (2018). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29884281/ Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, 3(6), 501–513.
[14] Torre, J. B., & Lieberman, M. D. (2018). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling as implicit emotion regulation. Emotion Review, 10(2), 116–124. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1754073917742706
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